Book Sox & Uniqueness
Ok I admit that I am out of the loop, I am not cool, etc, but sometimes even old 30 something like myself have to speak up.
Today I was in my local Office Lax (I call it that as they are lax on trying to help me and in stocking ANYTHING I need), During my visit I had to wait 20 minutes for the “Furniture specialist” to find the SKU number that I already gave him twice to special order something that they told me was in stock. It is in stock, somewhere, and now it will be MINE in only 1 to 3 business days. Anyway, while I was waiting for Uncle Slow to write up my “special order” I had ample time to look around the check out.
This time at the check out lead me to discover the BOOK SOX. Apparently the in thing for all the cool kids is to buy a book sox (some sort of fabric cover) for all your text books. These things run like $3.5 a piece and are available in a wide selections of patterns. They also have a note on the packaging to not drink and drive. I am not sure why we need that on the packaging of a book cover as I was not aware there was a big increase in bibliophiles driving drunk, but ok whatever I will let that one go.
My point in this is all well and good, and I am sure the book sox is a fine product, but I am concerned when students (parents) are more willing to worry about making their books unique and custom then actually learning what is inside of the books. I think we have reached a point where we focus on the importance of individuality more then we focus on the quality of the person and their education.
Understand I am all for people being unique, and I am unique myself, but it bothers me when it seems that we value uniqueness more then we value content and quality. So, this is not meant as a attack on the book sox, but I see this product as a nice overview of what I see happening more and more in society. If you want to be unique that is fine, but remember your uniqueness is far more tolerable when your character is deeper then your appearance.
Super-duper!
You see a fancy book cover being sold at office max and because it’s not plain or boring, you come to the conclusion that the parents and students buying them are more concerned about how their books look than actually reading them? Give me a break!
And what’s with your idiotic comments about their drunk driving warning? I suppose that all the ads we see on television, on billboards, in printed material, that children read in school or hear on the radio that are targeted towards adolescence are a waste of time as well?
I’ll have you know that all of my children have booksox and I’m proud that they are warning children about the dangers of drinking and driving. Despite however *you* may feel about it, it’s not only illegal, but it’s a big problem in this country.
Maybe you should turn off your computer, hop off the blog bandwagon and work a little bit harder on your own ‘uniqueness’ and ‘character’ before you go blasting others.
Arthur
Comment by
Arthur G. — 7/18/2006 @ 1:53 pm
I have to agree with Arthur. How can you even criticize someone for trying to educate children by telling them not to drink and dive. And I really don’t understand how you came to the conclusion that covering a book is more important than the content itself. Most schools require books to be covered because they get damaged otherwise.
Comment by
Ted — 8/1/2006 @ 9:39 am